Cummings grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and began acting on stage at the age of six. After performing in multiple professional plays, by the age of 16 she attended the conservatory drama program at
Carnegie Mellon University. During her summer years while at Carnegie, she continued to study acting at
Northwestern University and the
British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England (BADA). At BADA, she attended lectures with
Simon Callow,
Jeremy Irons,
Peggy Ashcroft and
John Gielgud. At Northwestern, she studied
Anton Chekhov’s plays with the master of Chekhov - the late
Earle R. Gister. Following her dramatic education, Cummings performed in regional theatres around the United States. It began when Peter Sylvester cast her in the role of Irina in “The Three Sisters,” by Anton Chekhov, at Synchronicity Space in New York City. Subsequently, she worked at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, with director Gregory Boyd (“A Flea in Her Ear,” by Georges Feydeau), and with directors and writers
Anne Bogart and
Tina Landau (“American Vaudeville”). She then performed the role of Constanza in “Amadeus,” by
Peter Schaffer which was directed by Mark Ramont at the Capital City Playhouse in Austin, Texas. And she enjoyed taking on the character of Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ directed by Anne Ciccolella at the Austin Shakespeare Festival. Anne Marie traveled to Seattle and created her first theatre company, The Immediate Theatre. She teamed with theatre and opera director, Chuck Hudson, who directed her in the role of Gregor in an avant-garde production of “The Metamorphosis,” by
Franz Kafka, and as Marie in “Woyzeck,” by
Georg Büchner. Cummings enjoyed experimenting in the theatre and collaborated with Benji Bittle who directed her in the role of Taylor (as a woman) from the play “K2,” by Patrick Meyers. For this production, a dance studio was turned into a mountain created by scaffolds, designed by Andrew Davidhazy, and Cummings (a method actress), trained for this role by summiting the 14,000 foot Mt. Rainier. Anne Marie also performed with established companies in the Seattle area: AHA! Theatre, Alice B. Theatre, the Seattle Shakespeare Company, the Seattle Children’s Theatre, the Seattle Opera, and the Seattle Repertory Theatre where she worked with Tony Award-Winning director,
Doug Hughes. Hughes directed Cummings in the black box and mainstage productions of “Voir Dire,” by
Joe Sutton, as well as a reading of the play at the New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan. A year later, Mark Cuddy cast and directed Cummings as Rosaura in “Life is a Dream,” by Pedro Calderon de la Barca at the Sacramento Theatre Company which inspired Edward Payson Call to cast Anne Marie as Antigone, in the Jean Anouilh version of “Antigone” at the Cleveland Playhouse and GeVa Theatre in Upstate New York. But it was at this point that Cummings moved back to New York City and shifted her focus from acting to playwriting and directing with performance readings of her plays “Helen of Purgatory,” “Touche!,” and “Extremes.” While Cummings directed most of the readings of her plays, she also worked with theatre directors Ludovica Villar-Hauser and Lucie Tiberghien. Performance readings of her work took place all across the city at the Culture Project, the Cherry Lane,
Classic Stage Company, Vineyard Theatre, and SALAAM Theatre. The performance readings of her play “India Dreaming,” were directed by Leigh Fondakowski (“
The Laramie Project”) and starred Indian movie stars,
Madhur Jaffrey (“
Vanya on 42nd Street”) followed by
Lillete Dubey (“
Monsoon Wedding” and “
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”). With further development, “India Dreaming” became “India Awaiting” and was performed Off-Broadway at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and starred
Maulik Pancholy (“
30 Rock” and “
Weeds”), and directed by Tyler Marchant. Following the limited run of “India Awaiting,” Cummings moved to Ithaca, in Upstate New York, to focus more intensely on her writing and directing. To make a living, Cummings worked as a columnist and journalist. As a columnist, she created the controversial piece, “Instant Message” (for Gannett publications). This column interviewed youth and was written in first person as monologues about teenagers' personal issues from eating disorders, family dysfunction, being bullied, relationships, school, learning, and so on. Also for Gannett, she wrote food reviews called, “Ithaca Eats,” and for Tompkins Weekly, she wrote breaking news stories, each featuring her own photography. Yet during this time, Cummings continued writing plays. She wrote “Sinkhole” and had more performance readings of her play “Extremes” (a reading was held at Primary Stages in the Big Apple which starred Michael Cullen from the film “Dead Man Walking” and
Jessica Blank from the award-winning play “The Exonerated”). She also made major revisions to “Helen of Purgatory” which then became the play “Purgatory Row” (with a performance reading starring Steppenwolf theatre actress, Kate Buddeke). Around this time, she created her second theatre company, The Readers’ Theatre of Ithaca, which started in a book store and moved into a black box theatre with performance readings of modern plays such as “Oleanna,” by
David Mamet, “The Mercy Seat,” by
Neil LaBute, and “Detroit,” by
Lisa D’Amour. However, it was when Anne Marie moved The Readers’ Theatre of Ithaca into Cinemapolis (the only independent movie theatre in Ithaca) that she began dabbling with theatre on film, as she called it. She wrote her play, “Soul Mates,” and filmed it in one shot at a diner. She then wrote and filmed a short called, “Easy Prey,” with each scene being filmed in one shot. For The Readers’ Theatre of Ithaca, Cummings began to film trailers for the modern plays she directed which continued to be performed on a small stage built into one of the movie theatres. But it was after one year at Cinemapolis that Cummings decided to expand and move to Los Angeles, CA, so that she could merge all of her experiences from the theatre as an actress, writer, director, artistic director, and producer, into her one-shot vision for television and film. == Awards and nominations ==